Gay Marriage Poll Numbers in Iowa and Maine
There are new poll numbers out in Iowa and Maine gauging support for same-sex marriage. Both states have legalized marriage equality, and both states are seeing a flurry of activity by opponents of LGBT rights to repeal marriage.
Let's look at Maine first, since anti-LGBT forces (led by Maine's Roman Catholic Church and outside groups like the National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family) have organized to place a measure on the November ballot that could repeal same-sex marriage if approved. As Kos reported last week, it's a pretty darn tight race, and if you take into account the margin of error, it's essentially a tie score in Maine. About 49 percent of folks would vote today to repeal marriage rights, while 47 percent would vote to keep marriage rights for same-sex couples. Those numbers show that we've got our work cut out for us in Maine -- which is why it's ever-so-crucial to support the efforts of the No on 1 campaign up there, which is fighting hard to preserve marriage equality.
Iowa has no ballot measure, but in the wake of the state's Supreme Court decision earlier this year recognizing marriage equality, nearly every anti-LGBT politician in the state has come out like gangbusters to bash LGBT folks. Given the number of Republican candidates running for governor who continue to blast gay marriage, as well as the National Organization for Marriage's money dump into the state to support a (losing) right-wing politician, one might assume that there's a populist rebellion on the horizon leading scores of Iowans pissed off that their state Supreme Court recognized some rights for LGBT people. Far from it.
The Des Moines Register released a new poll that shows 41 percent of folks oppose same-sex marriage, while 40 percent favor it. Call me an optimist, but given that there's no ballot campaign in the works, and a torrent of hateful rhetoric from the anti-gay right, those poll numbers are pretty damn good.
Even more heartening is the fact that 92 percent of Iowans say that legalizing gay marriage has had no direct impact on their lives. That certainly deflates a talking point of the anti-LGBT crowd that says same-sex marriage would threaten families or kids.
Of course, it would be great to see these numbers reversed. Better yet, it would be great to see marriage equality winning in these polls by a landslide. For Maine, the poll is a wake-up call that while the campaign to preserve marriage equality is close, there's much work to be done to take this from a "tie" to an outright win for equality.
In Iowa, these polls reaffirm that while the state is split, it's not a state that's becoming readily accessible to anti-gay, fringe messaging.
These are good numbers. But there's still much work to be done.
Michael Jones
is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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